State Secretary of Ministry of Youth and Sports Nenad Borovcanin attended the workshop “Virtual feels real” in Uzice on 9.11.2012, during which the participants, mostly young people from Uzice, were introduced to the topic of positive and negative aspects of the Internet and the promotion of responsible use of the Internet among young people.
Workshop was held as part of the project “Virtual feels real” implemented by NGO Libero and supported by the Serbian Ministry of Youth and Sport and European Youth Foundation of the Council of Europe, in cooperation with Youth Offices from Sombor, Zrenjanin, Uzice, Novi Pazar, Blace and Zajecar. Project aim is to train the first generation of young people in Serbia who would be willing to participate in the defense of human rights on the Internet, thus giving the national contribution to the campaign of the Council of Europe as part of the project “Fight against online hate speech.”
Opening the workshop, Nenad Borovcanin said that all the activities of the Ministry of Youth and Sports are aimed to better the position of young people in Serbia, towards the needs of the young people themselves, and to strengthen the regular communication with youth. Today, one of the most effective ways to communicate is by the increasing number of social networks where they spend a lot of their time. Therefore, the Ministry of Youth and Sport advocates safe and quality use of the Internet directed to informing, activism and youth mobility.
Aleksandra Mitrovic, Representative of the Republic of Serbia in bodies for youth of the Council of Europe, pointed out that one of the focuses of the youth sector at European level in 2013 will be online fight against discrimination and that Serbia, through projects such as this, provides an active contribution to the commonly defined priorities and goals.
Jelena Spasovic, President of the NGO Libero indicated that Libero for many years through projects on various topics contributes to the development of the youth sector in Serbia and expressed satisfaction that her organization was one of the first to recognize the national importance of the theme “Youth and social networks” for the position of young people in society.
The workshop was led by peer educators Zvezdan Mihajlovic and Bojana Stanic, who went through the initial training of peer educators within the project “Virtual feels real” in Subotica in October 2012. Further activities within this project will be implemented in cooperation with and fully supported by the Youth Office Uzice and its Coordinator Milovan Lucic.
